Tuesday, May 07, 2002

Almost a third of Americans consider Canada just another state, many mistakenly think Japan and China are their biggest trading partners and most say Britain is their country's best ally, a new poll shows. Got this from the Globe and Mail site, but then was able to find the survey company's release.

The detailed results are cool. I have to wonder about the respondants who thought that Taiwan was the US's largest trading partner, or the ones who thought that Italy was.

There were noticeable gender differences in the results: men were more likely to know that Canada is the US' largest trading partner (67/364, or 18%) than women (41/427 or 10%). Guys also seem more hawkish, as many more (37 or 10%) considered Israel the US's closed friend and ally than women did (9 or 2%). The women were much more likely to say they don't know (56 or 14%) than the men (22 or 6%).

Age and riches matter two. Those perhaps old enough (55+) to remember the last world war were more likely (140/277 or 64%) to see the UK as the US's closed friend and ally, than those under 34 (118/204 or 47%), with the middle age group in the middle. Being well off had the same correlation (richer people prefer Britain?) but that data may not account for the already noted age gap. Or vice versa. Age, riches, and section of the country: none of these seemed to matter whether the largest-trading-partner question was answered correctly.